1. Technical Field
The present teaching relates to methods, systems and programming for measuring user engagement. Particularly, the present teaching is directed to methods, systems, and programming for measuring user engagement with content items.
2. Discussion of Technical Background
The Internet has made it possible for a user to electronically access virtually any content at any time and from any location. With the explosion of information, it has become increasingly important to provide users with information that is relevant to the user. Further, as users of today's society rely on the Internet as their source of information, entertainment, and/or social connections, e.g., news, social interaction, movies, music, etc., it is critical to provide users with information they find valuable.
Efforts have been made to attempt to enable users to readily access relevant content. As an example, there are systems that identify users' interests based on observations made on users' interactions with content. In the context of search, for instance, observations regarding user engagement with search results are typically facilitated via click-thru measurements. In particular, a system determines that a content item has been accessed by a user when the user “clicks” a search result link to access the content item as a result of the selected link containing a URL that identifies the accessed content item. As such, by monitoring which search result links are clicked by users, the system can determine which content items are accessed by users and, thus, determine which content items (or their associated search result links) are more interesting to the users overall and/or on a query basis. Such determinations may then be used to personalize the content or the search results links that are provided to users during subsequent queries or other user activities.
However, in the context of mobile, a list of search result links may not be as practical. When approaches other than the traditional list of search result links are utilized to enable users to access content items related to a query, analysis of user engagement based on click-thru measurements may not be an appropriate option. Thus, there is a need for measuring user engagement with content items without, for example, necessarily relying solely on traditional click-thru measurements.